


Don't Speak

by Prentice



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alpha Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, Dubious Consent, Extremis, M/M, MJ is a Good Bro, Mating Bond, May Parker is a BAMF, Not A Fix-It, Older Man/Younger Man, Omega Peter Parker, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Power Imbalance, Virgin Peter Parker, not team Cap friendly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 22:37:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11473104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prentice/pseuds/Prentice
Summary: The thing was Peter didn’t like to talk about it.





	Don't Speak

**Author's Note:**

> I might have - or might end up - over tagging this over time because I seriously want people to take the warnings and tags seriously. I'm not your mom, your BFF, or your therapist. Your own reading habits are _your_ responsibility so READ THE TAGS and WARNINGS and I promise to update them as I go along if anything changes.
> 
> Also, please note that Peter is a teenager and working under a some questionable beliefs and assumptions about ~~sex~~ Alpha/Omega relationships. This will change over time because Tony Stark is not a monster or 100% a dick. 
> 
> Also, despite my warnings, this is actually going to be a pretty easygoing fic because Peter and Tony are precious AF.

The thing was Peter didn’t like to talk about it.

It wasn’t that he was ashamed or anything; any shame he might’ve felt had long since been numbed out of him by Aunt May’s embarrassing pep talks and Flash’s usual asshole-ish tendencies whenever they were in the same room with each other. It was just – he didn’t like to talk about it. With anyone.

Even Ned.

Or MJ.

Or even Aunt May.

Especially Aunt May, actually, because as much as he loved her – and he did, sometimes so much that it made him feel guilty; the memory of his mother fading a little bit more around the edges each and every year – she could sometimes be a little bit too…supportive.

Which normally wouldn’t have been a bad thing – and wasn’t, really. May’s love and support had gotten him through a hell of a lot over the years. More than he deserved he sometimes thought because he knew he wasn’t the easiest kid to deal with, especially now that she was on her own. It was just…

May didn’t – couldn’t – really understand what he was going through. Which, yeah, probably did sound like the standard teenage cliché bullshit that every teen drama capitalized on these days. It was just – this time – it was actually true.

Not only because Aunt May hadn’t been bitten by a radioactive spider – thank god for that; he loved May but the thought of her taking on the mantle of Spider-Man or, well, Spider-Woman was actually kind of terrifying on a number of different levels – but because she hadn’t presented as an Omega.

She was a Beta.

Just like Uncle Ben had been.

And they hadn’t been…

It still felt weird to say it this way but they hadn’t been mated to each other in the traditional sense. Not like his parents had been when they’d died. Which he was thankful for, even if it made him feel guilty and frustrated and vaguely horrified for feeling that way, because it had ended up saving May’s life in the long run.

It was something they had only talked about once – not long after Ben’s death, in fact, when May had still been drinking herself to sleep at night and Peter hadn’t really been sleeping at all – and were probably never going to speak of again. Which was fine by Peter. He didn’t think he could bare another night like that one, especially with the way May had clutched him close, warm tears dampening his shoulder as he’d curled against her, eyes red and raw but still painfully dry, as she’d explained the difference between what she and Ben had had and what his parents had had and how a part of her would always feel guilt and shame for not going with him like most mated pairs did and how goddamn happy she was that she didn’t because Ben would have never forgiven her for leaving Peter alone if she had.

It had been – was – another one of those things, another one of those conversations, that Peter didn’t like to talk about. Would never talk about again, ever, if he could help it. Not unless May wanted to, anyway, and he somehow doubted she would because he’d learned his emotional avoidance from somewhere and it really hadn’t been from Uncle Ben.

Either way, though, the idea – the principle of it – still stood. No matter how unforgivably – unfair – it sounded in his head because May…

She couldn’t understand.

Not really.

Not truly.

And even though he knew she tried her best – that she maybe even tried **too** hard because to this day they both still pretended he hadn’t seen her reading those pamphlets and books about ‘Omega Orientation’ and ‘The Omega in Your Life’ and ‘Knowing Your Omega Teenager’ she’d had stacked by her bedside for months after he’d presented only for them to magically disappear after she’d read them all – it still wasn’t enough.

Nothing was or ever would be, honestly. Not just because Peter was a teenager – fifteen, almost sixteen in a few months, which was starting to feel oddly significant to him even though Peter couldn’t exactly explain why – and she hadn’t been one in years or even that he had presented as an Omega – even though there hadn’t been an Omega in the Parker family in several generations and both his parents had been Betas so his being an Omega was a genetic fluke of some kind, clearly – and she hadn’t been. No, it wasn’t just that.

It was that Peter was Spider-Man.

And no one – not even Aunt May – could understand that.

Not in the way that Peter could – did.

Being Spider-Man was – everything – to him. More than everything. It was who he was – who he was meant to _be_ – and being an Omega on top of that…

It complicated things.

Not just because now Peter had to worry about things like ‘pheromones’ and ‘heat suppressants’ – which he wasn’t even sure would work on him anymore – and keeping track of his cycle (which was a whole different bucket of bolts that May had managed to both make easier for him and horrify him with because of her enthusiasm for oversharing), but also because being an Omega meant that somewhere out there – maybe even somewhere close – he had an Alpha waiting for him.

An Alpha.

Just the thought of it made Peter want to hide behind something – or someone. Maybe even Aunt May, who had already told him several times that he _never_ had to do anything he didn’t want to do and she would damn well make sure of it because this wasn’t the goddamn stone age and he had the right to choose, no matter what caveman bullshit his Alpha might try to pull. Which was nice of her, in theory, but Peter…

He didn’t hold out much hope.

Which probably sounded a little – okay, a lot – defeatist about the situation and maybe even somewhat alarmist (and prejudice, maybe?) when it came to Alphas but it wasn’t like it was untrue. Everyone knew – had heard from someone at some point – about what went down when an Alpha and Omega mated pair finally met. Peter would be lucky if he made it through with his dignity intact much less his pants, so it wasn’t like May could do a whole hell of a lot about it, especially when – biologically speaking – Peter would probably be totally on board with whatever was happening.

Which was – yeah, a little complicated and a whole hell of a lot screwed up– and one of the reasons why he didn’t like to talk about it. How could he when everything he was – Spider-Man included – Spider-Man _especially_ – was hanging in the balance of having an Alpha somewhere out there waiting for him? One who – maybe, just maybe – might not be able to handle the fact that Peter was Spider-Man? Or that Spider-Man was Peter? Or that Spider-Man – Peter – was an Omega who fought crime and was likely stronger, faster, and tougher than they were...?

It wasn’t – easy.

The thought of it.

Any of it.

And Peter didn’t want to fall down the rabbit hole of trying to decide which was better and which was worse. He couldn’t do that to himself. Not if he wanted to be able to keep his head above water and not just – freak out – or whatever it was that he sometimes felt pressing up beneath his skin, panicky and slick, whenever anyone tried to talk to him about it.

Not that many people did.

Except for Aunt May.

And Ned.

And MJ, that one-time Flash had been too much of a dick to him after one of their post-victory decathlon practices and she’d cold clocked him for it because, in her words, she’d been ‘tired of hearing him speak’. Which, yeah, he still really needed to thank her for that. Nicely, obviously, because apparently, she had a hell of a right hook.

But anyway…

It wasn’t that he was ashamed or anything.

It was just that he didn’t like to talk about it.

Not right now anyway.


End file.
